Chapter 22

Twenty-Two

The almost-empty castle seemed to grow even more desolate the higher Nick and Straw climbed. Likely, the few sycophants and servants who came to work for Zolesha found being in her actual presence was not nearly as rewarding as they initially thought.

"Still there?" Myrsina whispered, clearly well-acquainted with the sheer quantity of steps. She was two spirals above them, peering down, gripping the wrought iron banister while her legs continued to rise and fall at the knee. It was taking a lot for her to stay standing there, her defiance sending down a sprinkle of snowflakes.

Straw caught one in his hand, marveling at it.

"Still here," Nick wheezed. Get used to that.

In their up, up, and up trajectory, they seemed to have moved into the central part of the castle, and this particularly vertical staircase appeared to lead right to the very top: the black-spired tower that Nick had cracked his neck to see from the courtyard.

"Do you think someone could slide down these banisters?" Straw asked, not remotely breathless. The enviable joy of not having to rely on puny organs. Ironically, Nick was the one whose lungs felt like they were full of stuffing.

Nick plodded on, heaving himself up step after steep step. "Why do you ask?"

"Ideas." Straw tapped the side of his head. "I've done the math—sliding would be faster than running."

"If only there was a way to slide up," Nick muttered, adding more loudly, "But you do whatever you have to, Straw."

Straw patted him on the back. "I will, Mr. Nick. I'm good at my jobs now."

The duo finally reached a round landing, the dark tiled floor reflecting strange fragments of light. For a moment, Nick wondered if Myrsina was sparkling with the exertion of trying to delay her progress to Zolesha. She'd made it to the start of the walkway, white-knuckling the railings to give the other two time to catch up.

But the lights weren't coming from her.

He looked up, staring at the most unusual ceiling he'd ever seen. A perfect circle that immediately reminded him of a clock, ornately carved, curved seams of wood forming twelve segments. Between the wooden divides, a kaleidoscope of color caught some unknown light from above, casting the rainbow shards down onto the landing.

Not a clock at all, he realized, but an abstract flower design, made of wood and stained glass, like a window on its side. He'd seen something similar in his youth, adorning the sides of Glinda's palace.

"A rose window," Myrsina said, as if reading Nick's mind.

Straw snorted. "That's not a window. It's inside, so it's a ceiling or a floor, depending on which side of it you're looking at." He looked proud of himself.

Myrsina just shrugged. "That's what it's called. A rose window." She gestured up. "It's the most beautiful in bright sunlight or when at least two of the moons are full. So many colors. I sometimes stand here at night, among the colors and shapes, when I don't have to tend to my mistress. I don't dare linger too long when it's sunny."

She let go of the railing and continued across the suspended walkway, as if thinking about her mistress had made her body respond to her command more urgently.

One last—blissfully smaller—spiral staircase later, and an open doorway awaited them at the top, leading to the large round room that belonged to the stained glass they'd just seen. It was the floor, Nick was certain, but it was difficult to tell, as all those vivid colors had become one gleaming obsidian disk in this room. The effect of the pattern and stained glass could only be enjoyed from below, it seemed.

Ironic, too, as the rest of the room was devoid of color, illuminated by sapping silver moonlight and a few meager oil lamps.

A crystal-paneled dome curved high above, seemingly held in place by the jutting spires of the tower that were just visible outside, like an orb held in a stony-skeletal hand.

The walls on every side were glass, interrupted by four pillars of palest gray stone that fed up into those pointed spires.

But it was the center of the dome that drew Nick's attention, noting a sophisticated series of gears attached to a large steel mounting arm, anchored to the highest point of the curve. A huge brass telescope, easily eight feet long, was mounted to the end of the arm, and the whole of it looked as if it could swivel around and look out the various crystal windows from any point in the room. The bottom of the telescope had handles on either side, attached to the lower ring of the dome by thin, pliable cables. The viewing lens narrowed toward a leather chair that reminded Nick of dentists, sat atop a frighteningly tall, wide cylinder of untouched, pale stone with steps cut into yet another spiral around the sides.

Positioned all around the room were a series of desks with fancy lenses and journals scattered across their tops. Zolesha was walking back and forth in front of one such desk, treading on a white rug that might once have been a Gillikin bear, near the middle of the round room. She had a large leather-bound book in her arms and was staring deep into the pages, ignoring Myrsina's entrance.

The scarecrow would have walked in right behind her, but Nick grabbed his arm and pulled him backward, dragging him back down a few steps of that last staircase. Half flattening Straw against the iron stairs, Nick poked his head just enough above the figurative parapet to see what was happening.

Stacks of the missing books from the library littered the gleaming floor, forcing Myrsina to pick her limping way through the smattering of discarded knowledge to get to the witch.

Zolesha adjusted her hold on the large tome and turned a page.

Nick studied the layout, looking for some way to get to the witch from halfway across the room without getting blasted off his feet by her magic. That massive cylinder in the center could be useful, but he'd still have to get through the door and dive behind it without being noticed. On his Summer Solstoz legs, he'd have been there already.

A lead cannon ball sank into his stomach.

It was all coming down to this moment. Nick needed to take his time and figure out the best course of action. No rushing, no lamenting, no mistakes. With that, he tossed out his first plan, just as Zolesha's voice barked out, "What took you so long?"

Myrsina looked as if she were doing her best to not answer, and in that shaky moment of resistance, the girl drew all of the Wicked Witch's attention.

Soulless black eyes narrowed into the softer dark of her magical duplicate, and the quivering girl answered in the same mechanically forced voice she'd used while explaining why she was loading wands into a bandolier. "Nick was in the wand room and?—"

Nick didn't hear the rest. He was already in motion.

He dragged his scrapyard limbs up the stairs and barged, clunky as a three-wheeled cart, into the room. But that sleek, dark floor was more slippery than he'd anticipated, and as both his rusting legs nearly went out from under him, he grappled for the nearest desk, sending the hip-high piles of books to join their brethren on the floor.

To Zolesha's credit, she was faster than Nick had expected. She lunged for the leather bandolier, nearly startling Myrsina off her feet too, not realizing that the bandolier was hooked on the servant's forearm. The roughness of the pull slipped the leather strap off Myrsina's wrist but out of Zolesha's grasp. Still, the damage was done: the Wicked Witch had freed one of her ebony wands. She aimed it at Nick, the point as threatening as a primed cannon with a match tilted at the fuse.

Myrsina stepped backward, spilling another tower of books and whispering the words, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I… couldn't stop myself from answering her question."

Behind Nick, the scarecrow wobbled into the room, although what he could offer at this moment, he had no idea.

Nick's cold metal hand clicked against the flat head of the axe on his hip, and Zolesha tsked him into stopping with a waggle of her ebony wand.

"Now, now, now," Zolesha said, smiling coldly. "Eight years of waiting for a proper face-to-face like this, and you're as clueless now as you were back then—you should never let me get a wand out, Nicholas. Wizard alive, you haven't even learned anything from our short but sweet time in the poppy field. Far be it for me to tell anyone how to do revenge, but here's what you should have done, Nicholas—you should have killed my servant and then come and killed me."

"When are you going to realize," Nick countered, "that not everyone is as selfish and Wicked as you? Not everyone is willing to do terrible, unforgivable things because someone rejected them once. Sorry—twice."

She half grinned at his comment. "You think that's why?" She chuckled to herself. "Poor, poor Nicholas. Always so arrogant. Anyway, now that my sister's gone, no one can be as Wicked as me. I'll take the compliment."

Nick risked a half step forward, his hand tightening on the axe head.

"Ah, ah, ah." Zolesha wagged her wand in warning. "Let's talk for a moment before I melt you down and use you as a doorstop. Be nice to have someone melt with you for once, won't it, Myrsina?"

The magical creation of snow and ice cowered beside the desk she'd knocked into.

Straw had finished his meandering course through the book piles and stood halfway between Nick and Myrsina. He seemed almost Toto-like at that moment, his friendly face bouncing back and forth between the girl and Nick, obviously unsure of who to try and help.

"Me, arrogant?" Nick challenged. "You're the one who thinks you've got it all figured out, when you don't have a clue."

"Oh, please. You've come to rescue that inferior girl, yet again," she hissed at him. "Ever the damsel-chaser. Or are you going to lie and say I'm wrong? Is that the best diversion you have? All your good ideas rusted over in that tin skull of yours?"

Nick said nothing, letting Zolesha stew. He'd give her enough rope…

"Well," the witch went on, "she's not here, as you can see, and since you're not getting out of this room unless I decide to hurl you down all those flights of stairs, you won't be making it back to her. If you were the Nick I knew, you still wouldn't manage it."

"Oh, I don't mean I'm going to rescue her from the castle." Nick had to fight to suppress the macabre joy of dropping the proverbial axe on her, in case it froze him too soon. "My friends will do that. I meant I'm going to rescue her from Oz. She's going home, where she belongs. But, apparently, we have to deal with you first."

Zolesha turned up her nose. "What's the trick? Come on, Nicholas, where's the poppy pollen?"

"No trick."

The Wicked Witch's black eyes flared. "You're going to miss out on being the hero to try and end me? I don't believe it for a second. You're dense, but you're not that stupid, and you're a lot more selfish than you give yourself credit for." She smiled. "Because beneath all this bravado, Nicholas, you want her to stay."

The thin, sinewy muscle between his ribs became ice-swollen iron, driving a javelin of agony from one side of his chest to the other. He couldn't help it, couldn't stop it, because she wasn't wrong, and just thinking about never seeing Dorothy again was worse than whatever was going to happen to him in this tower.

"I'm not here to kill you," he rasped. "I wouldn't tarnish myself the way you've tarnished yourself. I have a friend who told me that no one deserves death. I made a promise to him, though you can soothe your ego by knowing that I truly gave killing you real thought."

She cackled at him. "As if I would believe that, you do-gooder idiot."

Nick took another half step forward, and Zolesha tightened her grip on her wand.

"As fun as this has been," she sneered, "I'm bored now. I'd ask you to go hide before I catch you, for old time's sake, but it's not as entertaining if I have to give you an hour just to get down one flight of stairs. Now, I may not be able to Curse you directly, but why don't we see how many thousands of ways I can deal with you?"

With a flick of her wand, a dripping trail of liquid fire spilled onto the rug in front of her like an uncurling whip.

Zolesha snapped the wand at Nick, and a crackling dragon-spout of flame blasted from the end. It would have caught him square in the chest, but it seemed he still had enough speed to throw himself bodily behind the nearest desk.

The fire slithered between the gap of books stacked under the desk, flashing at him in spattering bursts in a searing game of hide-and-seek. Nick shouldered the piece of furniture over onto its side, using it as an impromptu shield as more fire rushed out of the wooden wand in her hand. It threatened to engulf the fire-kindling scarecrow next, rear and all.

Zolesha swept the wand slowly across the room, cackling in glee as books and tapestries were lashed by the whip-line of fire, cutting toward the scarecrow who had finally made the decision to run toward Myrsina, attempting to save her from the unhinged Wicked Witch.

Swallowing every bit of fear and pushing it as deep into himself as his mind would allow, Nick freed up his metal body enough to heave up the edge of the desk and send it tumbling forward into flaming books that scattered toward Zolesha. The distraction worked long enough to make the torrent of wand-flame gutter.

And in that split second, Nick had a life-changing decision to make. He could follow the piece of furniture forward and attempt to waylay the witch, darting across the chaos of books and the desk that had all created a barrier he was unsure he could catapult over. Or he could save the two beings who weren't really real. Two things created by magic: the one who'd traveled the length of Oz with him, and the one who proved that not all Wicked magic was evil.

Nick's body seemed to make the decision on its own. He surged toward Straw and Myrsina, pushing the pair of them behind the nearest table before ducking behind it himself.

He glanced up when no fresh splash of fire struck. It seemed the first wand had fallen from Zolesha's hand and large swaths of the fire had magically disappeared. It wasn't completely gone though, as the books were catching, and the rug had already caught, and the small fires dotting the large room would soon spread.

In the precious seconds he had spent to save the pair of magical beings from a toasting and a melting, respectively, Zolesha had salvaged the leather bandolier from beneath the debris and was already yanking out a fresh wand.

"Ideas?" Nick glanced at the scarecrow.

Straw was blowing on his arm, where a smoldering ember was about to become a hungry flame. Especially if the scarecrow kept blowing on it.

Nick made the mistake of cursing his surprise, his Curse activating before he'd even finished the expletive, tightening his whole body and weighing him down like lead.

He tried to reach for Straw as the ember snapped into a flame, but the air had become molasses, his arm inching instead of shooting forward. Of course, he knew the air wasn't the problem, his shoulder joint grinding to a halt.

Then there was a watery hiss as the ice maiden did what Nick couldn't, grabbing Straw's arm. Her own hands seemed to disappear in a flash of steam, and when she pulled back, her left hand was missing to the wrist, while her right arm seemed to be getting slimmer by the second, water dripping onto the floor.

"I'm sorry I couldn't help more," she sobbed, the trickle down her arm becoming a torrent.

Zolesha's voice cackled out from the crackling fire. "Everyone still alive? Say, ‘yes, mistress' if you are."

Myrsina seemed once again magically compelled to answer. She looked like she wanted to cover her mouth, but as she raised her right arm to do so, the hand broke off mid-forearm. It exploded in a puff of snow as it hit the floor, melting quickly into a slick of water.

"Yes, mistress," she said, staring at the puddle of herself.

Zolesha laughed. "I knew I could rely on you to be honest, dear creature. Now, come to me and make sure to walk through everything that's on fire. I've just started to enjoy this castle; I'd hate to burn it down."

Myrsina stood up and zombie-walked around the overturned desk.

The scarecrow tried to hold her back, grabbing her thin belt, but his light frame was dragged along behind the girl's.

Nick couldn't risk both of them being dragged through the fire. He snatched at the scarecrow's back, Straw's hand sliding loose of the belt, pulling him to the "safety" of the desk's shadow.

"That's not fair!" Straw called out in fear and frustration. Even though he had no water in him to cry, his voice was thick with what sounded like tears. "That poor girl! Nick, stop her!"

There was only one thing left to do. He stood up, preparing to leap over the desk, but stumbled backward, his spine hitting the glass wall behind him as a shard of ice shattered against his chest. A call of pain traitorously escaped his throat, his hardened skin steeling further, the bounce of his body against glass causing a crack. There was a nails-on-chalkboard scrape that even seemed to make Zolesha shudder as he slumped, sliding down the glass wall.

"I was destined for this," Straw said, stooping over Nick's prone form. "Every patch of yourself that you put on me, to save me… was so I could return the favor."

He pulled the axe from Nick's hip. There was no way the Good magic that powered Straw would allow him to harm the Wicked Witch, no matter how Wicked she was. So, there was a moment of confusion as Nick wondered what in Oz the scarecrow could possibly do with the axe.

For his part, the scarecrow scanned the series of gears overhead, his painted eyes flicking fast across the wires and pulleys before finally coming to a stop on the bottom mount of the massive brass telescope.

"I may not understand people," Straw told Nick as he finished whatever calculations he was making in his hay-stuffed mind, "but I do understand math!"

In between the crackling pop of one flame and the snap of another, the scarecrow drew his arm back and put all of his meager weight into the forward throw, letting the axe fly in a surprisingly perfect arc… the blade wub-wub-wubbing well over the witch's head.

The sharp metal edge of the chopper axe slammed against one of the joints that supported the mounting arm, marking it with a first strike that might as well have been a third. The lens end of the telescope went into free fall, juddering to a stop at a sharp diagonal, the narrow end now higher than the wider.

Zolesha had ducked under the flying axe and was rising up again when the large telescope raged into life, the axe head playing havoc with the limp mechanical arm. The telescope swung chaotically on its swivel points, spinning the heavy metal tube like a large mace around that central stone cylinder, leaving almost nowhere to hide… except for the outermost perimeter where Nick and Straw were. And Myrsina, seeing it coming, flattened what was left of herself onto the floor, the lens end of the telescope sweeping just inches above her head.

The witch wasn't so quick to see the danger. She cried out as the large end of the telescope caught her hard in the stomach, flinging her backward.

It bought Nick the time he needed.

Heaving himself to his feet, he lumbered through the spreading fire, passing the melting servant who was crawling forward, a trail of steamy water putting out the fires behind her as she disappeared from existence.

Zolesha threw away the ice wand and had a fresh black one in her hand. She whispered a spell and blasted it at the telescope. It wrenched off the mechanical arm and sailed toward Nick.

He swerved it, the telescope crashing to the floor, splintering into chunks of metal and wood. But Zolesha already had another wand in hand, crackling blue snaps of lightning blasting Nick in the chest before he'd recovered from wrenching his body out of the way of the telescope.

His vision flashed turquoise, and his ears rang from the thunder crack, the whole world buzzing like a million honey wasps were coming to punish him for dancing an insult instead of a polite request.

It would have brought down a dozen charging Kalidahs, but it was the wrong spell to use on Nick.

The electricity charged around his metal skin, blasting down through his boots, destroying them even as it discharged, white hot, into the iron framework of the floor beneath him. He laboriously wiggled a couple of toes, lucky his feet hadn't welded to the metal as well. The glass itself was intact and unharmed, making him wonder if it was not ordinary glass, but rather mystical gem-glass.

Zolesha flicked the wand away into another small, but quickly spreading, fire, and backpedaled.

Unfortunately for her, a stack of her library littering stood directly behind her, and she tumbled, flailing her arms out, sending the bandolier of remaining wands skittering across the floor, an echo of Glinda's struggle beside the tailor's shop, when Nick had first set eyes on Dorothy.

As the witch fell backward, she gripped one last wand in her hand.

She never landed.

The lightning had jiggled the cells of Nick's chromium condition, surging an energy through his legs that allowed him to sprint forward. His hand snatched hold of Zolesha's wrist, and he heaved her forward into his arms. His hand caught hers, smothering the wand with his grip, while he turned the point toward his chest. He pulled her closer and leaned all the way in, putting his ton weight behind it, the wand a strange bridge between the pair.

The black wood wand snapped, splinters cascading. She pummeled her free hand against him to no effect.

"You broke my wand!" she yelled in his face, her mad eyes looking as if she wanted to bite him. And if he had been truly flesh, she probably would have.

"That's not the important wand," he replied.

Nick let go of her hand long enough to grab the metal tube that poked slightly out of the folds of her robe. Inside, without doubt, was the wand that brought Dorothy to Oz.

"This is the wand I'm after," Nick declared.

He lifted Zolesha off her feet with one arm. She kicked and flailed, trying to break loose of his grasp, even as the fire spread and the smoke choked both of their lungs.

"Straw!" Nick called to his friend, who was standing dumbfounded over the watery remains of the fallen ice maiden. "You can't save Myrsina, but you can save Dorothy. Remember—as fast as you can!"

Dorothy's name, their friend's name, caught the scarecrow's attention. Nick had let too much of panic and need flow into his voice, the spreading metal of his Curse drilling deeper than ever into the armature of his body. But it didn't matter. Nothing mattered except saving Dorothy.

"Slide and sprint!" Straw said, barely audible over the shrieking rage of the Wicked Witch in Nick's steely grip.

"That's right," Nick croaked.

He tossed the tube to the scarecrow. The trajectory was perfect, despite the witch flailing in his arm, and there was one thing Nick was certain of, and that was Straw knowing everything there was to know about geometry.

The infinitely clumsy scarecrow swiped it deftly out of the air. He knew his math indeed.

But then he stumbled as he tried to correct his footing, falling to one wooden knee, devilishly close to a small pile of burning books. He righted himself, and Nick let relief claw its way up through his Curse.

His bones became steel, crushing any flesh that remained under his own weight. The agony was singular. Blinding.

Before he couldn't move at all, Nick repositioned Zolesha, spinning her around, wrapping one arm around her stomach and clamping his right hand over her mouth, the bull-charging breath from her nose puffing lines of condensation across the top of his unfeeling metal fingers. He was tempted to cover her nose as well but kept his hand locked on her jaw, remembering his promise to Lional. If her fire killed them both, so be it, but he wasn't a murderer.

The only sounds left were the thrashing of her body, the muffled yells caught in his grip, and the autumn-leaf-underfoot crackle of fire that would soon become a roar.

"Go!" Nick told the scarecrow, fighting his thick jaw against every word. "Take… the wand… to Dot."

His wonky hay-bale friend looked like he wasn't going to do it, and even took a tentative step closer to Nick instead, held back only by the fire tracing its way across the wool rug.

"I thought you'd be running with…" The scarecrow couldn't finish the sentence.

"It's okay, buddy," Nick replied. "Go, save Dorothy, get her home. Be the hero Glinda… made you to be." He wanted to add more, but the molten breath was starting to set in his tight throat. He was coming to the end of the Curse.

The mention of Straw's mission from Glinda seemed to override everything else, and in an eerie duplication of Myrsina's responses to Zolesha's commands, the scarecrow turned from the room and darted away, his feet clanging faintly on the spiral staircase.

Straw's desperate calls echoed back, begging Nick to take the order back. To not send him away. That, surely, there was a way to save Nick too.

But Nick had already made his decision. He'd made it the second the wand holding his Curse broke. He was the only person who could stop Zolesha forever—that was his purpose, and he wouldn't fail now.

And then the scarecrow was gone from danger and happy tears ran slick and rusty down Nick's face. Go, Straw, let some innocence survive this horrible ordeal.

Nick forced his head forward against the furious pain of muscles that had become corroded clockwork, until his mouth was close to the Wicked Witch's ear. He wanted her to hear his last words. Needed her to.

"You wanted to be in my arms, Zo," Nick whispered hot and deadly to Zolesha as he tightened his arm around her middle and his hand over her mouth, making sure she would never, ever escape. "Now you can. Forever. My gift… to you."

He would have released his hatred for Zolesha—along with every unpleasant thought he'd ever felt, every nightmare-inducing pain, every righteous desire for angry revenge he'd ever courted—from the deep restraints inside his body. He wanted to let all his fury boil up to the surface for the Curse to consume and transform. But that felt wrong. Like a marring scratch on the silver gleam of the very reason he was doing this in the first place—to rescue Dorothy.

There was only one Good way to beat Wickedness, and that was with love.

So, Nick did just that. He let happy thoughts—every laugh, every smile hidden beneath the Curse's punishment, every romantic moment that he wanted to share with Dorothy that had been held back by Wicked magic, and every gentle hope for a future with her that had been pre-destroyed by another woman's petty jealousy—flow from his heart to shine forever-bright on his metal-hardened face. He felt the smile winching up his mouth, freezing there.

But his smile never managed to reach his eyes. The last emotion—perhaps the most powerful of them all—Nick Chopper experienced before he became solid silver from skin to bone, was the sorrow that he would never get the chance to tell Dorothy that he loved her.